Cooper Landing

Two Moose Pass classmates caught top prizes in this year’s Fish Art Contest, a competition in which students research and draw fish of their choice in the name of conservation.

Eight-year-old Gabby Bond came in second among Alaska students in her age group for her illustration of a garibaldi. 

There’s a new pond near Cooper Landing. It formed as snowmelt and drainage from a creek pooled in the underpass at the bottom of Skyline Trail, blocking hikers from going under the highway to get from the parking lot to the trailhead.

The underpass is new. It was built in 2019 and cost the state just under $400,000, as part of a larger Sterling Highway rehabilitation project.

Now, it’s unpassable because of all the water.

Trappers and recreationists have long been at odds over trapping restrictions in Cooper Landing.

Tensions came to a head several years ago when the Alaska Board of Game quashed a proposal to ban trailside trapping, citing a lack of compromise between activists on either side.

Now, several Cooper Landing residents are reigniting the conversation. They’ve surveyed locals on where they’d like to see trapping setbacks and will use the data to craft a proposal for the Board of Game and the Federal Subsistence Management Board.

Regardless of how the tourism season shapes up, Cooper Landing will have over 100 new faces this summer.

They’ll be in town to work on the Sterling Highway bypass project, the plan to divert traffic between mileposts 45 and 60 of the highway up to a bridge across Juneau Creek Canyon. Construction is ramping up on the project this summer.

When conditions are right, residents of Caribou Island, in the middle of Skilak Lake, can get to their properties through an easement on the island’s south side.

It’s one of several ways to access the island’s 223 lots and it borders property belonging to Michael and Peggy Clements, of Sterling.